16 June 2018

Finally swapped in the Inconel turbocharger mounting studs. Hopefully this stomps out that failure mode for good.

I also had the pleasure of again meeting Martin Waide at a dinner party, ex-Lotus engineer from back in its heyday. To talk to someone who worked for Colin Chapman himself, and with Graham Hill and Jim Clark, is just, wow, expanding my world while at the same time making it feel a lot smaller. It’s like finding a little window through which to peer back into history, marveling at the golden age of racecars.

He asked many questions about Midlana and not unexpectedly, surrounding guests rolled their eyes and moved away as we went into suspension design. Since car design is such a niche, I don’t discuss it much because I know that it’s not at all interesting to most people, but, get me in the same room with someone who works in the field and off I go.

I’m going to meet up with him again so that he can check out Midlana; not as “look what I did” but to get a real engineer’s perspective on its design.